Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia on Tuesday (3 February) of exploiting a U.S.-backed energy ceasefire to stockpile weapons and launch large-scale drone and missile attacks on Ukraine ahead of peace talks.
Zelenskyy said Ukraine was waiting for U.S. reaction to Russia's overnight attack that damaged Ukraine's energy infrastructure, as Washington had prompted a short-lived ceasefire in attacks on energy targets.
U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters Russian President Vladimir Putin had made an agreement that expired on Sunday (1 February).
"It was Sunday to Sunday, and it opened up and he hit them hard last night," he said at the White House. "He kept his word on that ... we'll take anything, because it's really, really cold over there. But it was on Sunday, and he went from Sunday to Sunday."
Asked if he was disappointed, Trump replied, "I want him to end the war."
The attack knocked out heating in cities, including the capital Kyiv, during freezing temperatures, even as Ukrainian negotiators headed to Abu Dhabi for a second round of U.S.-brokered trilateral talks set for 4-5 February.
"It was a deliberate attack against energy infrastructure, involving a record number of ballistic missiles," Zelenskyy wrote on X.
Pressure on Ukraine
Ukraine is under U.S. pressure to agree to a peace deal while attacks by Russia on its energy system appear intended to freeze Ukrainians into submission.
The first round of trilateral talks in late January brought no movement on territorial issues, with Moscow demanding Kyiv cede more land in eastern Ukraine, which it refuses to do.
Speaking to reporters in Kyiv at a press conference with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, he said Ukraine would approach Washington to discuss new consequences for Russia.
In his nightly video address, Zelenskyy said, "We expect a response from the United States to the Russian strikes. It was America's proposal to stop strikes on energy infrastructure during diplomatic efforts and the cold winter period."
Ukrainian officials said Russia launched 450 drones and more than 70 missiles in strikes that wounded at least 12 people and struck apartment blocks and energy infrastructure as temperatures hovered around minus 20 Celsius (minus 4 Fahrenheit).
An early evening strike on Tuesday (3 February) in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia killed two 18-year-olds and injured nine people.
Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Kuleba said 1,142 apartment buildings in Kyiv remained without heating and officials in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, said 270,000 residents were in unheated apartments.
"The goal is obvious: to cause maximum destruction and leave the city without heat in severe cold," Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov wrote on Telegram, adding that a thermal plant in the city had been badly damaged.
Much of Ukraine has been gripped by a new wave of cold after what experts said was the coldest January in six years. Families languish in frigid and darkened apartments during power outages and cuts to heating that last hours and days.
Kyiv resident Natalia Hlobenko, 35, described how she rushed to cover her 11-year-old son just on Tuesday before an explosion sprayed her apartment with broken glass.
"Where is this ceasefire?" said a teary Hlobenko, bundled in her windowless apartment. "Honestly, how much can we take?"
Zelenskyy has previously said Ukraine, which is struggling to stop grinding Russian battlefield advances, was ready for "substantive" talks. Moscow and Kyiv blame each other for the failure to agree a peace deal.
Territory remains the main sticking point, with Ukraine resisting Russia's demands that it cede the remaining 20% of the eastern region of Donetsk that Moscow has been unable to conquer since its 2022 invasion.
Ukraine's lead negotiator said Ukrainian officials would first hold bilateral talks with U.S. officials in Abu Dhabi to discuss U.S. security guarantees for any peace deal and a post-war reconstruction package, and later hold a trilateral meeting involving Russian negotiators.
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Russia struck Ukraine overnight in one of the biggest attacks of the conflict, killing at least 19 people, Kyiv's Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday. Around 70 missiles were fired at Ukraine during the attack, as well as drones, the Ministry said.
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